We'll be moving to a different website at the end of May and how we send out Bible Notes will work a bit differently.  You'll now be able to download the whole month's readings in one go to read at your own pace rather than receiving them daily.  We hope you'll continue to enjoy reading these notes put together by members of FoL.

⁴“Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you.”

If you read yesterday’s reflection you’ll remember that it spoke about the fact that God sees beyond all the difficult stuff we face in life. He sees the good things He has planned for us and the blessings that He has in store. Part of our problem is that we sometimes have to wait for God’s plans to be worked out and that can lead us into a place where we stop believing that He’s got a plan for us at all. The dictionary term for that is ‘impatience’. But we need to remember that we won’t see all the details He needs to sort out before He gets to our bit of the huge puzzle that he’s unravelling.

Isaiah’s words were designed to encourage people to hold on while they waited for God’s plans to work through to their conclusion. It’s a bit like building a house. You have to put the foundations down before you can build the walls. The roof has to go on before you can put the windows and doors in and then you need to fit the electrics and plumbing before you can decorate it and make it a home. So as God works out His plans there will be a sequence of events that sometimes need to be worked out before He can sort out our problems.

So, Isaiah says, “‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.” He always does. He always comes. Sometimes He comes in unexpected ways, sometimes He comes in ways that we can’t see or in ways that we don’t want to see but He always comes. We just need to be strong and carry on without fear.

***

Application:

Are there things you’re waiting for God to do in your life right now? Are there things that you want Him to do in specific ways? Are you impatient in Your waiting or are you able to wait for His move with peace and in obedience to Him? Sometimes we’ll wait years and sometimes we’ll wait and wait and eventually He comes with something other than the thing we had hoped for but he will come.

Prayer:

Bless me with patience and obedience Lord as I wait for You to move in the difficult areas of my life (….name them here….) bless me with the vision to see Your hand at work in whatever way You choose to move and grant that I might rejoice as I walk with You. Amen.